3/30/2006

These guys lose money when they're wrong

Tradesports is a gambling website. I've never placed a bet there, but I often look them up when assessing who's going to win an election. Unlike pollsters, the bookies lose when they get their spread betting odds wrong.

As of tonight, here's what they have to say about the Senate elections in November. Of the 33 Senate seats up for election, 25 are safe for the incumbent party. If we assume the Democrats hold all their narrow leads, win all their narrow leads, and take the ones where the Republicans have a reasonable but not overwhelming lead, and they get Vermont (independent), we get the following result.

Democrats 50
Republicans 50

So the Republicans would hold on by the Vice-President's casting vote. This isn't going to happen. For a start, I expect some of the races currently rated as safe to become closer. The bookies think the overall chances of the Republicans holding on are over 75%.

For the House of Representatives there is only a global bet on offer: here the Republicans are trading at about 56.5%.

For the governors' elections we find four Democrat gains and four close calls, all Republican held. If they all went Democrat we get:
Democrats 30
Republicans 20

Now that's more interesting. Same reservations as for Senators, of course.
I haven't yet made my mind up about these election races.

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